Thursday, May 11, 2017

You may have heard a rumour today that Panelbase's latest Scottish subsample puts the Conservatives in the lead, but that's not actually true. On the headline figures excluding Don't Knows, the SNP and the Tories are tied at 42% apiece. That's sobering enough, but to put things in perspective, a Survation telephone subsample yesterday put the SNP ahead of the Tories by more than 30 points. Even if they were properly weighted (which they're not), individual subsamples have such a huge margin of error that both of those results are perfectly consistent with what we've seen in the full-scale Scottish polls during this campaign, ie. an SNP lead over the Tories of between 11% and 15%. The slight cause for concern, though, is that Panelbase's fieldwork finished much later, and there's a theoretical possibility that it was picking up genuine momentum for the Scottish Tories brought about by the reporting (or misreporting) of the local elections. All we can do is wait and see. The next straw in the wind will be a YouGov subsample released in the morning. In the meantime, here is what an average of subsamples over the last seven days looks like...

(The Poll of Polls for Westminster voting intentions uses the Scottish subsamples from all GB-wide polls that have been conducted entirely within the last seven days and for which datasets have been provided, and also all full-scale Scottish polls that have been conducted at least partly within the last seven days. Full-scale polls are given ten times the weighting of subsamples.)

Looked at that Scotsman poll. If the best result in 25 years means 24% for the Tories. Then that changes nothing. They are 16% behind the SNP on 40% . The green vote is at 7% but only 3 are standing. Add at least 4% of that overestimated Green vote and the SNP are nearly 20% ahead. The media and the Tories are trying to create an illusion here. Leading others to vote Tory by endorsing their alleged momentum.

I think they will get 5 Mp's , SNP 50 and the others will go Lib Dem. A monumental defeat of unionism.

50 seats would be a very good night for the SNP. Im sure Angus Robertson will hold onto his seat but Perth looks quite tricky as the council results had the Tories in front . adding on some of the Green VI then the SNP are in the mid 40's.

The Google poll considering all things is not a disaster for the SNP. Adding on some of the Green VI then the SNP are in the mid 40's.The news paper has made a mistake with the SNPs 2015 result and think they have posted the 2016 Scottish election result.

What if you're a green who votes green for environmental concerns rather than independence? After all if independence was your biggest driver you'd just vote snp anyways. Greens are more likely to stay at home or vote lib dem, a pro-eu and pro-environment party. The SNP aren't pro-evironment, their grand plan from 2014 was to run an oil state.

Good points but no one has said that all the Green votes will go to the SNP.The Tories are making this election in Scotland all about independence so I wouldn't be at all surprised if most Greens would vote for a pro independence candidate if a Green was not standing.

I find it hard to believe that support for the Tories is really up at almost a third of the electorate - wouldn't that mean that a good two thirds of Labour supporters have defected to their traditional class enemies?

I know that those subset polls have to be taken with unhealthy doses of salt, but I'm sincerely puzzled nontheless, and also not brilliant with statistics, so help me out please, someone!

Except that wasn't the SNP plan for 2014 was it. Greens are pro-EU, pro environment, pro-independence. None of the other parties aligns closely other than the SNP. Lib-dems propped up a despicable conservative government so hardly a match for Greens.

and you can take that from a Green party member who will be voting SNP. Incidentally by proposing independence and membership of the EU the SNP are de facto giving our environment the best chance at protective legislation regardless if that it there primary consideration or not. The Lib dems cant stop Brexit regardless of how EU they want to be. The SNP can...but only through the mechanism of independence. We are through the looking glass now. Its independence vs hard brexit. Lib dems and Labour are caught on the fence.

It's more a sign of muddled thinking if you bang on about the advantages of one union but only about the disadvantages of another union. And green doesn't mean pro-independence, green means pro-environment: use less energy, make less waste. Sadly though the scottish greens have been hijacked by types who have indy leanings but for social reasons don't want to associate too closely with the types who support snp. In that sense it mirrors how labour's been taken over by momentum.

For comparison, I don't see the english greens pushing for english independence, do you? That's because they're actually bothered about green stuff. Being a proper green party and that.

I've never really understood why Scottish nationalists fret over apparent Tory surges. Surely you can see that this is a long game, and the vitally important aspect is that Labour is dead in Scotland. Now, people are being forced to choose up sides. They're either proper Scots or English lackeys. With Labour gone, there's no "internationalist" cover in the centre ground. In the short term the Tories might do all right among people who cling to the fiction that the UK is not Greater England, but that won't last. We're in the end game now.